1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical member capable of being used for forming a liquid-crystal display device excellent in visibility such as contrast or brightness at a wide viewing angle.
2. Description of the Related Art
High contrast of 10 or higher in a viewing angle range of 80 degrees in vertical and horizontal directions has been heretofore required of a large-screen TV, or the like, using liquid-crystal display. In consideration of this requirement, a method using a circularly polarizer to solve a problem of reduction in luminance due to reduction in numerical aperture on the basis of split portions obtained by dividing each pixel into multiple domains compared with a mono-domain type has been proposed (Proceedings of SID2000 [31, 35.3(2000)902]) in a liquid-crystal panel of the type in which orientation of liquid crystal is divided into fine domains as in a multiple-domain VA (vertical alignment) mode to compensate for a retardation generated in each domain with another domain (pixel) to thereby achieve good visibility at a wide viewing angle. There was however a problem that contrast was lowered because light leakage occurred when black was displayed. Similar problems may occur when using linearly polarizer.